WJBF (channel 6) is a
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ear ...
in
Augusta, Georgia
Augusta ( ), officially Augusta–Richmond County, is a consolidated city-county on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia. The city lies across the Savannah River from South Carolina at the head of its navigable portion. Georg ...
, United States, affiliated with
ABC and owned by
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 tele ...
. The station's studios are located in Television Park, near the Augusta Mall in Augusta, and its transmitter is located in
Beech Island, South Carolina
Beech Island is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Aiken County, South Carolina, United States.Walter Edgar, Ed.: ''The South Carolina Encyclopedia'', The University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, S.C., 2006, p. 6 ...
.
History
WJBF-TV began operations on November 23, 1953 as Augusta's first television station. The station was founded by the Georgia-Carolina Broadcasting Company, the broadcasting arm of local entrepreneur
J. B. Fuqua, who also owned
NBC Radio Network
The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first ...
affiliate WJBF (1230 AM). WJBF-TV was a primary
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...
affiliate, but picked up programs from
CBS, ABC and
DuMont on a secondary basis. Sister station WJBF radio was sold by Fuqua in 1954 (it is now
WEZO
WEZO (1230 AM, "The Blaze") is a radio station broadcasting an urban adult contemporary/Black Gospel format. Licensed to Augusta, Georgia, United States, the station is currently owned by Michael Sbuttoni, through licensee MSbuttoni, LLC.
Histo ...
). It lost CBS only three months later when
WRDW-TV
WRDW-TV (channel 12) is a television station in Augusta, Georgia, United States, affiliated with CBS and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power broadcasting#Television, low-power, Class A television service, Class A NBC a ...
(channel 12) signed on.
On September 1, 1967, WJBF became a primary ABC affiliate. The move relegated NBC to a shared secondary affiliation with WRDW-TV. This was an unusual situation for a then two-station market, especially one as small as Augusta. ABC, as the smallest and weakest of the big three networks, would not be on nearly the same footing with CBS and NBC until the 1970s, when most markets of Augusta's size grew large enough to support three full network affiliates. However, fellow NBC affiliate
WIS-TV in
Columbia
Columbia may refer to:
* Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America
Places North America Natural features
* Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...
provided at least grade B coverage to the South Carolina side of the market. In contrast, no full-time ABC affiliate put even a grade B signal into the area. Fuqua reasoned that if channel 6 took a primary ABC affiliation, it wouldn't have significant out-of-market competition. Additionally, in 1966 Fuqua bought two full-time ABC affiliates,
WTVW in
Evansville, Indiana
Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...
and KTHI-TV (now
KVLY-TV
KVLY-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Fargo, North Dakota, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Horace-licensed low-power dual CBS/ CW+ affiliate KXJB-LD (channel 30). Both stations share ...
) in
Fargo, North Dakota
Fargo ( /ˈfɑɹɡoʊ/) is a city in and the county seat of Cass County, North Dakota, United States. According to the 2020 census, its population was 125,990, making it the most populous city in the state and the 219th-most populous city in ...
, and apparently wanted to get his other stations—WJBF and
KTVE in
El Dorado, Arkansas
El Dorado, founded by Matthew Rainey, is a city in, and the county seat of, Union County, on the southern border of Arkansas, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 18,884.
El Dorado is headquarters of the Ark ...
—in line with the new acquisitions. In 1969, Fuqua branched out into the movie theater business when he purchased Martin Theaters of Georgia, forerunner of
Carmike Cinemas
Carmike Cinemas was a motion picture exhibitor headquartered in Columbus, Georgia. As of March 2016, the company had 276 theaters with 2,954 screens in 41 states, and was the fourth largest movie theater chain in the United States. The company ...
. At the time, Martin Theaters of Georgia itself also owned
WTVM in
Columbus, Georgia
Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it o ...
, and
WTVC in
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, it also extends into Marion County, Tennessee, Marion County on its west ...
, also ABC affiliates. Those were added to Fuqua's portfolio.
When WATU (channel 26, later WAGT) began operations in December 1968, conventional wisdom suggested that it would become a full NBC affiliate. However, since many Augusta viewers still didn't have UHF-capable sets, NBC allowed WJBF and WRDW-TV to continue to cherry-pick most of its stronger programs. For its part, WJBF kept airing both the ''
Today Show'' and ''
The Tonight Show
''The Tonight Show'' is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. The show has been hosted by six comedians: Steve Allen (1954–1957), Jack Paar (1957–1962), Johnny Carson (1962–1992), Jay Leno (1992–2009 and 2010â ...
'', which preempted ABC's ''
The Dick Cavett Show'' among others. WATU was thus saddled with NBC's weaker programs, a major factor in the station going dark in 1970. When WATU returned to the air in 1974 as a full-time NBC affiliate, WJBF was forced to drop NBC programming once and for all, per an FCC order issued in 1971 that required VHF stations in markets with three or more commercial outlets to affiliate with only one network.
Fuqua began breaking up his business empire in 1980. His television stations were among the first assets to be sold, with WJBF and WTVM going to
Missoula, Montana
Missoula ( ; fla, label= Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County. It is located along the Clark Fork Ri ...
–based Western Broadcasting Company., and WTVC going to the
A. H. Belo Corporation
DallasNews Corporation, formerly A. H. Belo Corporation (), is a Dallas-based media holding company of The Dallas Morning News and Belo + Company. The current corporation was formed when Belo Corporation separated its broadcasting and publi ...
of Dallas, Texas. In 1984, Western sold its broadcast holdings to the
SFN Companies, then-parent of educational publisher
Scott, Foresman and Company
Scott Foresman was an elementary educational publisher for PreK through Grade 6 in all subject areas. Its titles are now owned by Savvas Learning Company which formed from former Pearson Education K12 division. The old Glenview headquarters o ...
. In 1986, SFN was sold to Pegasus Broadcasting, a new firm formed by members of SFN's management. Spartan Radiocasting of
Spartanburg, South Carolina
Spartanburg is a city in and the seat of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city of Spartanburg has a municipal population of 38,732 as of the 2020 census, making it the 11th-largest city in the state. For a time, the Offi ...
purchased the station in 1992. Spartan was renamed
Spartan Communications in 1995. Spartan merged with
Media General
Media General was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-Dispatch ...
in 2000.
WJBF replaced RTV with
MeTV
MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television program ...
on digital subchannel 6.2 on September 26, 2011, as part of a groupwide affiliation agreement with Media General; the channel replaced RTV on some Media General-owned stations in other market.
Augusta West, management of WAGT
In October 2009,
Schurz Communications
Schurz Communications is a South Bend, Indiana-based broadband media group and cloud services provider. It owned newspapers.
History
The company was founded in 1872 by Alfred B. Miller and Elmer Crockett with the creation of the ''South Bend ...
announced that it would enter into joint sales and
shared services
Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group, where that service had previously been found, in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and th ...
agreements with WJBF, meaning that
WAGT's news operation and advertising sales department would be taken over by Media General. Most of WAGT's managerial staff were dismissed, and other employees were reassigned to different positions.
Media General had initially intended to move WAGT into an expanded wing of the WJBF building in downtown Augusta. Both WJBF and WAGT have had a longstanding presence in the downtown area. Channel 6's facility on Reynolds Street was built around 1956, and channel 26 moved into its Broad Street building, a converted theatre, in 1981. However, it soon became apparent that WJBF's facility could not sustain the expansion necessary to house both stations. Media General instead chose to remodel what had been a
big-box store
A big-box store (also hyperstore, supercenter, superstore, or megastore) is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain of stores. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store. The te ...
to contain the stations. The new facility, located at the Augusta West Shopping Center in a former
Barnes & Noble retail location, was opened in October 2011. While the two stations shared some internal services, WAGT's news operation and sales department operated autonomously from that of WJBF, and the two stations also produced competing news programming from their dedicated areas of the facility.
The SSA was disbanded on February 16, 2016 after the acquisition of WAGT by
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...
, owner of WRDW-TV.
Gray accused Media General of "
efusingto agree to a smooth transition of personnel
rom WAGT
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* ...
and not allowing them to move along to the station's new owner, as they fell under the employment of WJBF due to the shared services agreement.
On February 26, 2016, an
injunction was granted against Gray by Media General, claiming that Gray violated the SSA by unwinding it following its purchase of WAGT. The agreement was to last through 2020, and stipulated that all future owners of the station would remain subject to it.
Local programming
Since 1954, WJBF has produced and aired the Sunday morning
gospel music program ''Parade of Quartets'', one of the longest-running local programs of any kind on American television. The program has been a showcase for regionally and nationally known African-American gospel performers, and has also featured appearances from political and social figures. Augusta native
James Brown,
Shirley Caesar
Shirley Ann Caesar-Williams (born October 13, 1938), known professionally as Shirley Caesar, is an American gospel singer whose career has spanned seven decades. She has won 11 Grammys in addition to Dove Awards and Stellar Awards; Caesar is k ...
,
Al Green
Albert Leornes Greene (born April 13, 1946), better known as Al Green, is an American singer, songwriter, pastor and record producer best known for recording a series of soul hit singles in the early 1970s, including " Take Me to the River", ...
, the
Mighty Clouds of Joy,
Dorothy Norwood and
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson ( né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senato ...
are among those who have appeared on the program.
The station also produces an
urban music
Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, hip hop, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contem ...
video program, ''Power Hitz'', which airs on Sunday evenings. ''Power Hitz'' has been on the air since 2001.
From 1954 until 1992, WJBF produced and aired a Sunday afternoon
Southern gospel
Southern gospel music is a genre of Christian music. Its name comes from its origins in the southeastern United States. Its lyrics are written to express either personal or a communal faith regarding biblical teachings and Christian life, a ...
program featuring the locally based
Lewis Family, known as the "First Family of Bluegrass Gospel," that was seen in other markets via
syndication. After the weekly series ended, WJBF continued to produce and air a yearly
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year ...
special until the group's retirement in 2009.
News operation
As of May 2021, WJBF presently broadcasts 35 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6½ hours on weekdays, 2½ hours on Saturdays, and two hours on Sundays).
Appropriately for being the first television station in the area, WJBF has led the ratings for most of its history, with rival WRDW-TV usually the runner-up. In recent years, WJBF and WRDW-TV had usually traded first and second place, while WAGT almost always placed third.
In the 1980s, its newscasts were branded ''NewsWatch 6''. After being acquired by Spartan Radiocasting in 1992, WJBF and some other stations acquired by the company changed their branding to ''NewsChannel''. This station and most of its sister affiliates still use this branding today after being acquired by Media General. However, long after Spartan bought the station, WJBF retained the "groovy 6" logo it had used in one form or another since the late 1970s. This changed in 2002, when it adopted the "arc" logo used by most Media General stations.
In the 1990s, WJBF reached an agreement with the
Augusta Mall
Augusta Mall is a two level super-regional shopping mall in Augusta, Georgia, United States. It is one of the largest malls in the state of Georgia, and it is the largest mall in the Augusta metropolitan area. The anchor stores are Dick's Sportin ...
to run a
closed-circuit "Mall TV" feed on television screens throughout the mall featuring the day's news and coverage of some local special events. WJBF operated this service until the late-1990s. They also had a local agreement with Comcast to air a rebroadcast of the 6 p.m. show on the cable provider's channel 66. This arrangement ended in 2004 with the launch of a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelv ...
affiliate
WFXG (channel 54). The production uses different graphics and duratrans concealing the WJBF logos. The launch came after its studios were renovated.
In December 2009, WAGT and WJBF partnered under a shared services agreement, with WJBF producing WAGT's news, sales, and other programming.
On October 17, 2011, WJBF launched local newscasts in high definition starting with the morning newscast. It is the third station in the area to do so behind WFXG and WRDW-TV.
Subchannels
References
External links
*
''Parade of Quartets'' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wjbf
ABC network affiliates
JBF
Television channels and stations established in 1953
1953 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
MeTV affiliates
Ion Television affiliates
Ion Mystery affiliates
Nexstar Media Group